Considerable efforts by armament manufacturers throughout the world have been devoted to developing automated apparatus for handling ammunition for large field weapons. This is particularly so in the case of mobile direct and indirect fire weapons carried by armored vehicles, such as tanks and self-propelled howitzers. Presently the tasks of withdrawing rounds from storage and loading them into the breech of a large caliber gun are almost universally performed manually. A gun loader is thus an essential member of military tank crew. Gun firing rate is therefore largely dependent on the ability of the gun loader to expeditiously handle large caliber ammunition which may be thirty six inches in length and weigh as much as ninety five pounds or more.
Of the numerous autoloaders seen in the prior art, most are highly complex, extraordinarily space-consuming, difficult to maintain and susceptible to frequent malfunction. Many of the existing designs require that the gun return to a predetermined position, particularly in elevation, before automated loading can be effected. Thus, the gun must be repeatedly removed from the target for reloading and returned for firing, a significant detriment to firing rate.